Feel free to dot this guy and kill the post after. I'm going to get started when I come home later on tonight. Hopefully that'll give everyone a time to jump onto this.
You come to in what could only be called a city. Great, towering buildings made of some sort of yellow stone you do not recognize loom over you, stretching beyond your sight.The walls seem to twist and bend in ways your mind cannot grasp, and the jagged cobblestones that make up the road barely fit together. Everywhere you look, a persistent, sickly yellow fog obscures your vision. It reeks of decay.
The road continues ahead of you before branching off into left and right paths, the fog and buildings obscuring what could be down the alleyways. Nothing about this place looks familiar. You do not remember how you came to this place. You do not know where you are. You do not know what this place even is.
A sound draws your attention. Behind you, hidden by the fog, something is moving. A slow, rhythmic sound that could only be footsteps echo down the twisted road. it is impossible to tell how far away it is. Only that it is getting closer.
As you look into the gloom of the sickly yellow fog, you realize you are not alone. With you are three others, people you do not recognize. You four are all standing, exposed, in the middle of the road. And the footsteps are growing louder.
Round order
Malugar
Shirrin
Ragnar
Amalthia
Malugar finds himself running. His bare (bare?) feet land at dangerous angles on uneven cobblestones, each step a gamble. Will he stumble again? His right knee aches painfully, a reminder of his previous fall but a moment ago, when he had hesitated rounding a corner, convinced he'd find himself in a familiar street. But there had only been more nameless alleys, more shuttered windows and darkened lampposts.
And the others--terrified faces mirroring his own; nameless shadows flitting through the darkness, like shooting stars that fall helpless in the blackness of space. Only to perish alone on an alien shore.
Make a wish.
The thought, meaningless and absurd, explodes in his head, catching him off guard. He stumbles over a protruding stone and goes flailing, landing hard on his elbows.
He gasps in pain before scrambling to his feet. Just before him stand some others, other lost stars. Behind him, the steps grow louder, colder, hungrier. "Don't stop!" he screams. His voice rings strangely in his own ears. He was not expecting the thought to find life. "Run!"
He hobbles forward, squeezing the closest one's arm, feeling the familiar surge of magic. But something is wrong about it, sickly and weak. Frantic, he breaks away and scrambles further down the alley, away from the ominous footfalls.
Amalthia stands in a sea of sickly yellow fog. It fills her nostrils, fills her lungs... It's everywhere. The reek, the death... It's inside her. She's choking on it.
I'm going to die.
Around her she can see strange spires and buildings, reaching up to the sky like yellow fingers about to close, crushing her in their grasp.
I'm going to die.
There's shapes in the fog. Shadowy blurs. People running past, yelling at her to run. Behind them there's something else, something other. She can hear it's footsteps coming closer. And every rhythmic thump sends shivers of uncontrollable fear coursing through her.
I'm going to die.
She's frozen. She can't move.
It's coming closer.
"I don't want to die." She says, her voice a terrified quiver. "I don't want to die!"
Finally in control of herself, Amalthia turns and runs as fast as she can, following the dark, distant shapes of the others on their panicked flight through the streets.
Something comes over her, something dark... Instinctual. She finds herself muttering strange words, words she doesn't understand. A strange green goo covers her body, then vanishes. She can't see it, but she can feel it, slimy and chill against her flesh. She runs on, into the unknown, but inside she's screaming.
What did I do? What is that? Where am I?
Im going to die!
I don't want to die!
Ragnar peers into the thick yellow fog and then at the woman beside him as she mutters. "Pull back, get out of here." Try as he might he can't make out the figure but those foot steps are still getting closer.
It's my fault He didn't know why but he felt guilty over something and surely the looming threat was his responsibility. He made sure to slow his pace to keep himself between the oncoming source of dread and Amalthia.
Looking behind him his hand reached down to draw his sword.
Shirrin is carefully making his way through the city, looking to left and right, trying to determine what is there, where he is. As the mist parts and he sees others with him his first reaction is to study the newcomers, to determine where they may be from.
He takes a second to study himself, to see how he is armed and armoured.
But as the others start to run and scream nearly incohate words he decides that discretion might well be the best part of valour.
"As the old adage goes, one doesn't have to be faster than the dragon. One just has to be faster than the others fleeing the dragon"
With that, he quickly casts expeditious retreat on himself and then flees with his companions whilst also trying to see what is chasing them.
The road stretches on, branches and side paths offering a potential means of escape. While the elevations never changes, you begin to like you're running uphill, than downhill, then somehow at an impossible angle along a hill. Still the footsteps echo around you. And while they never seem to change pace, you can tell they are getting closer.
When Ragnar reaches for his sword, he finds nothing there. Of all his equipment, only his silver dagger and his holy symbol remain, but both are corrupted. The silver of the dagger is tarnished, unused for possibly millennia, while the golden visage of Saranrae now looks like oozing pus.
The others are likewise missing most of their equipment. Malugar is caring only his greataxe, though the blade is chipped and the handle rotted through.He feels something in his pocket. Reaching down, he feels tiny bones jumping into his hand as he runs.
Shirrin has just his formula book and extracts, no weapons to speak of. There is a symbol on the front of the formula book he does not recognize. As he looks at it, it slips from his mind and it melts away into dust.
Amalthia is different. She has gained something. A small, golden ring on her finger, and a silver necklace with a butterfly charm. But as soon as she realizes what she's gained, it is lost again. The ring slips and tumbles to the cobblestones, disappearing into the fog as she runs. With a clink, the necklace breaks, and the butterfly charm flies up into the air and out of sight. Maybe it's trying to get away.
Shirrin peers into the fog, but sees nothing but sickly yellow. Wait, maybe there, at the far edge of his sight. A figure. Something he can't quite place. Moving towards him. Faster.
"He's getting closer! Move." Ragnar encourages the others to move out but with that knot of guilt in his stomach he stays at the rear of the group. He doesn't want to fight the thing but still feels he might be able to defend them.
He half stumbles on a cobblestone as they withdraw.
Shirrin talks in a loud whisper
"There is somebody up ahead. I'm not sure if it is an enemy or a friend. Speaking of, who are all of you? Do I know you? Do any of you know where we are? Or what is going on?"
As he is moving, Shirren looks around for anything that he can use as a weapon. A stick, some stones, anything.
"They're not going to take me without a fight"
Amalthia feels a sudden rush of love and safety overcome her as she realizes she has that simple golden ring on her finger. But then it slips off her finger and tumbles to the cobblestones.
"No!" she screams. She turns, losing the people in the mist in order to chase her ring down, throwing herself on her hands and knees to find it.
I need it! It's important! It's from him! ...From who? I love... who?
She doesn't remember, but she feels empty without the ring. Alone, and cold. A whimper of despair escapes her lips.
The necklace around her neck breaks, and the butterfly charm comes off, flying up into the air.
"Don't abandon me!" she calls after the butterfly, hopping to try to snatch it in her hands, but it's nimble and quick. It's gone.
A heavy feeling of dread slips back over Amalthia. She goes back to crawling on the cobblestones, frantically trying to find her ring in the fog.
Malugar sees the others run around him up the strange path. Follow them, he thinks, but his stomach rises to his throat as his foot slips and he nearly falls once again. His ax, rotted and ruined, clatters dully to the stones. He knows it cannot help him now.
Up ahead, he sees an alleyway opening on the right. A cold, prickling sensation runs through him as he stumbles into the passageway, hoping that whatever pursues them will not detect him.
His hands find the bones within his pockets, and sense of nauseating dread kicks him in the stomach. His insides twist. Toothy? It cannot be. Who would harm a defenseless pet? Would they do the same to him? Now his fear, his will to live, vies with a rising anger, a desire for vengeance, like two vipers in a caged pit. The fear claims victory.
"What's it want!?" he whispers aloud to no one in particular before racing down the fog-cloaked alleyway.
The fog grows thicker. It becomes nearly impossible to see in front of you. The smell of decay grows stronger. With a sickening dread, you realize you've lost your companions, their footfalls lost to the fog. All you hear is your breathing. And whatever is chasing you. Nearly on top of you.
Shirrin finds a bone, possibly a femur and possibly human, in the alley. It would work as an improvised club if need be.
It's here
Amalthia looks up from the ground, hands and knees on the cobblestones.
All thoughts of what she was looking for fall away.
There's only dread...
She sees...?
Amalthia
Slowly, Amalthia's life blood drips and forms a word. "Me"
Malugar, his heart beating furiously, stops his running, realizing that he's lost the way of the road. He spins in a circle, searching the endless fog. "What d'ya want!" he screams. He looks to the sky. For escape? No, there is none. For salvation? But from whom? He cannot remember his god. He cannot remember. He...
I can't remember anything.
He falls to his knees and covers his eyes. He isn't sure of who he is, or where he is, or where he's been, or how he's come to be here. Least of all, he doesn't understand why he is being chased by this unknown thing. What could he have done to deserve this?
The only thing he knows, the only thing he is absolutely sure of, is that it is just so wrong. There is something sinister about all of this, yes, but also something unnameably bizarre. This is a new kind of evil, unknown even to his nightmares, and visited upon him now through this suffocating, unspeakable presence.
Trembling, his fingers part, and he stares out past them into the fog...
From somewhere deep in the thick fog you can hear Amalthia.
"Me," she says. But her voice sounds strange. It's distorted and... wrong, somehow. Alien.
Malugar
Then time snaps. Rushing, too fast to follow, nearly too fast to see, it comes rushning out of the fog. It is vaguely human, but too tall with elongated limbs and massive claws. It is dressed in a makeshift robe of yellow rags, and its head is covered in bloody bandages, leaving only space for its fang-filled mouth. It's back is so horribly twisted that moves with an unnatural, looping gait, and yet still it moves so fast it's upon Malugar before he can react. The last thing he notices is flashes of red sprinkled on the thing's robes before a sharp pain, then nothing.
It slowly picks itself off Malugar's corpse, blood dripping onto the cobblestones. The thin razor in its hand, now bright red, is not even cleaned as it continues its methodical march. Towards the others.
Malugar's blood oozes into the cracks of the cobblestones, seeming to flow of its own accord. Eventually the rivers meet, and somehow, impossibly, form a word. "Up"
Malugar's voice bubbles up through sickly yellow fog, tinged with an inexplicable, otherwordly resonance.
▂▃▅▆█▒[larger]UP[/larger]▒█▆▅▃▂
"If I'm going down, I'm going down fighting. And it looks like I AM going down"
Shirrin does a couple of practice swings with his bone
"Come and get me you foul pieces of s#*+. If you dare, that is. I'll show you how a MAN dies. On his feet, facing his death with dignity"
Ragnar tried to go to help the others or even backtrack but he had somehoe gotten so turned around so fast he couldn't find any familiar sights.
Then he started hearing the shouts thouvh they were muffled by the fog. He staggered short of breath over cobblestones almost tripping but clutching the tarnished silver dagger tightly.
Shirrin
Shirrin charged the creature, swinging the club with all his might. It didn't even try to resist. As the bone struck the creature it shattered. Immense pain ripped through Shirrin's leg and he collapsed, unable to support his weight. Looking down , he saw his leg was horribly bent and twisted, bits of bone sticking through his pants. Cold realization swept through him. A shadow fell over him. Looking up, he gazed into it's mouth. It pulled back its lipless mouth and laughed at him. The last thing Shirrin felt was fear.
After it was done the creature moved on, atill laughing. The blood on Shirrin's defiled corpse began to twist and move and impossibly formed a single word. Save
Ragnar
A sound behind him caused him to turn. It was waiting. Vaugly human with elongated limbs and massive claws, it was dressed in a rob of yellow rags and it's head was covered in bandages with only it's fang-filles mouth exposed. It held a thin razor in its hand. Its back was horribly twisted, so much that stood at an angle.
And it simply stood there. Ragnar readied the tarnished silver dagger, and still the creature stood there. A beat passed. Ragnar blinked. The creature vanished. A horrible wet sound came from Ragnar's back.qith a metallic clank, the silver dagger fell to The cobblestones. The thin blade of the razor was protruding from his stomach. He could feel the creature's foul breath on his neck as it twisted the blade in his back. As his consciousness fadded, the last thing Ragnar saw was his life blood spraying up to the stars.
As Ragnar collapsed, the drips of his blood slowed, then stopped their decent. They simply hung, suspended in the air, forming one last word. Wake
In a very, very strange voice, a voice that could come from no human mouth, a voice that man was not meant to use nor to hear, Shirrin says
"Sv
The word hung in the air composed of Ragnars blood as his eyes glazed over and the darkness number the pain Wake
"Wake up and save me, damn it!"
The angry about jolts you awake. Disoriented, you try to take stock of your surroundings. You see bars, rough brick, a flicker of torch light. You do not know where you are. As you try to remember, you find nothing. Literally nothing. You do not remember your name, your past, anything. You do not even remember your own face.
The party was spilt between two jail cells in what must have been a dungeon
The lack of windows gave no indication to time of day, or where they were. Ragnar and Amalthina shares one cell while directly across from them was Shirrin and Malugar. All four of them were naked and none of their equipment was visible. But it was what between them that drew their attention.
Strapped to a gurney in the middle of the chamber was a naked man. Shallow cuts covered his body and dried blood was caked to his skin. He was tied down by bloody leather straps. He stared, wild-eyed, at his tormentor. Walking in a lazy circle around him was a tall, thin women dressed in what appeared to be a nurse's uniform. Her apron had taken on the rusty colour of dried blood. A small table was beside the gurney. On it, a collection of cruel surgical tools were arrayed haphazardly, many of which were rusted or covered in blood.
The nurse stopped her prowl, before grabbing a scalpel. "Yes, I think this will do nicely" she said with a hiss.
The man began to twist in his restraints, desperate to get away. "No! No, please not again! he begged as the nurse came closer. "Not again!" His pitiful screams rocked the chamber.
The half-orc awakes with a sharp intake of breath. Reflexively, his body tenses and he jerks up from a fetal position he had curled himself into. His head bangs against the bars, startling him again.
A dream, he figures with relief, rubbing his head. Only a dream.
A wiggling next to his naked body startles him, and he recoils and nearly strikes at it with his palm, but a scruffy, squalid rat with ludicrously large, bucked teeth and piercing dark eyes crawls up onto his thigh. "Oh, it's you. It's you!" He knows this rat. He knows it's a friend, somehow, and that in his name he'd given it a name but now... Now... Everything is so jumbled. "Oh but I'm glad you're still with me," he adds, rubbing its head with a dirty finger.
The screams don't let him muse for long. Glancing around, he sees a naked human in the cell with him. He's at least figured out this much--he is orcish. "Hey!" he whispers gruffly. "Wake up." He nudges the human with his large, green foot. they can't just let the man be tortured to death. "You with me? Do you know where we are? Do ya...do ya know who we are?"
Amalthia's eyes jolt open and as she startles awake. Sweat covers her naked body and her body shivers with cold. Seeing herself naked, in some kind of cell she screams, scrambling back into the far corner and huddling here, arms around her curled up knees. She sobs in terror and confusion.
Her eyes fall upon another in the cell--a naked man a mere foot from her. She screams again, throwing her arms up between herself and him to protect herself. Unconsciously, a green ooze seeps out of her palms, and slides along her body, covering her chest and then disappearing.
She can feel it there, against her flesh. Cold and slick. Disgusting.
She screams a third time, in terror at her own powers.
"What is this? What's happening to me?"
She looks at her own hands, her own body.
"What..? Who am I?" WHERE AM I?"
Looking around she realizes the nurse outside her cell and the man the nurse is about to cut up in front of her. His pleading... His cries.
"No! Leave him alone!" Amalthia shouts, throwing her arms out to stop the woman--though what she could do from within a cell she didn't know.
To her surprise a blob of green mucousy goo shoots out of her outstretched hands and flies at the nurse.
Between the screams and somebody touching him, Shirren wakes up. Confused. Uncertain where he is, he immediately springs to his feet and takes up a fighting crouch, frantically trying to draw weapons that aren't there.
He quickly takes stock of his surroundings. A half-orc leaning over him. Doesn't appear to be a threat.
A man and a woman, both naked, in a different cell. In other circumstances he'd perhaps care about the fact that the woman was attractive and naked. But in the current situation all that stands out to him is that she too is without weapons. Or without normal weapons, at least.
Then he notices the person who has screamed and the nurse threatening him. There is something that perhaps he can do something about. And doing something is high on his priority list.
He frantically looks around the cell for a bit of stone, a spoon. Anything with which he can perhaps jimmy the door of the cell open.
Ragnar was offended by the way the woman held up her hands protecting herself against him. I'm not like that, I'm... I can't remember.
The strange naked woman had used magic. He looked at the nurse. She'd have to come in for a reprisal and he'd be ready.
He looked about for signs of an exit from the area outside
... or keys.
The nurse swirled to face Amalthia as the ball of ectoplasam sailed past her head, exploding on the fall wall. Her face was distorted, not only with rage, but worse. Her skin had become grey, her mouth unhinged and filled with fangs, here eyes solid white. But in a blink, her normal visage resumes and she's human again.
"You are supposed to be asleep," the nurse starts, leaving the man alone to stalk towards Amalthia's cell. "I was going to save you for later, but I guess you can't wait.
But the nurse forgets herself. All that fresh blood had made the man on the gurney skin slick and as the nurse's back is turned, he manages to free a leg. With a cry, he kicks the nurse in the small of the back, pushing her up against Amalthia and Ragnar's cell's bars.
"Take that you b#~&&! the man yells, elated to finally fight back against his tormentor.
In panic, Amalthia stands up.
"Stay back!" she warns, voice quaking with fear.
For some reason that he doesn't understand, Shirrin finds himself neither particularly surprised nor upset when the creature reveals that she was inhuman.
"I should know what that is. I really should"
In a probably vain attempt to distract it so the others can strike, he slams himself into the cage as close to it as he can get and yells out,
"Hah. Take THIS you b!+@*".
A fighter. Good. Malugar thinks as Shirrin verbally assaults the horrid nurse. Her appearance is unsettling, and not just on account of her gray skin and distorted teeth. There's something distinctinly unnatural about her, Malugar can tell simply by looking. Whatever manner of hell they'd found themselves in, it's far worse than he could have imagined.
At first he simply stares, dumbfounded, and backs away from the bars. I have to get out of here. How can I get out of here?? But his little rat, filthy with grime and who knows what else, squeaks urgently, and he knows just what he should do.
"Of course ya can. How could I forget?" He nudges the rat with his toe as his whispering subsides to an unintelligible amalgamation of hisses and chitters . The rat squeaks and, almost excitedly, flies across the room toward the creature. Malugar grins obscenely and, despite himself, begins to chuckle. For, however helpless he may currently be, he can feel the latent power surge through him, into his rat, and back.
The rat bares its enormous fangs, shimmers, and seems to fracture, its imaging splintering off into what must me be a hundred shards. By now Malugar has re-approached the bars and gripped them fiercely, and his laugh grows louder as each shard becomes another rat, a rat that splinters in turn, as a roiling, festering mass of hundreds of rats crashes into the nurse like a tsunami from some plague-kissed nightmare, spurred on by its creator's cackling.
Ragnar will try to grab the keys as the woman like thing is pressed against the bars and off balance. Plenty of sharp objects out there to give them a fighting chance and this thing had to be stopped.
While both Shirrin and Malugar tried desperately to understand what the monstrous creature in front them could be, they simply couldn't remember anything useful. The mere act of trying to remember hurt. It felt like they were missing parts of themselves.
The mad wave of rats rushed over the nurse. Enraged, she let go of all pretenses of being human. Fully reverting to her monstrous form, she began to wildly slash at the swarm of rats with her scalpel.
The biting, clawing mass of flesh overwhelmed the nurse, nearly drowning her in fur.
Seeing his chance, Ragnar tried to snatch the keys off the nurse's belt.
However, the twisting nurse kept the keys just out of reach.
Overcome with fury, the nurse shook off the swarm and rushed Malugar's cell. However, as she passed the man on the gurney, he delivered another kick, this time right to the monster's face. The keys, possibly because the leather thong that held them in place had been chewed by the rat swarm, ripped free and went tumbling across the room, landing within arms reach of Malugar's and Shirrin's cell.
"Enough!" the nurse shrieked. Spitting curses to the heavens, she jumped onto the gurney and began to cut away at the man, quickly ending his desperate bid at freedom.
"No!" Amalthia screams, as the man's life is ended.
She hurries forward, overcome with anger and an instinctual rush of bravery.
Amalthia throws her arm out towards the nurse, causing a sizzling slop to fly at her right from Amalthia's outstretched palm.
Malugar stops laughing as the man on the table dies. His rats continue their work, however, swarming up over the table to chew away at both the nurse and the corpse of the poor man.
Ragnar will look around the cell for anything he could use as a even a very basic weapon. The woman hard been torturing and killed a man for seemingly no reason... and seemed to intend to do the same to them.
The nurse is too busy burchering the dead man to notice, or care, about the rats attacking her, or the ball of acid that spalshed into her side.
With a vicious strike, the nurse disemboweled the corpse. Organs and entrails slopped to the floor with a wet, sticky sound. The nurse began to laugh manically.
Ragnar quickly searched his cell, but saw nothing particularly useful against something like whatever the nurse was. However, just outside, a table full of cutting and blunt instruments awaited him. If he could just get out of his cell.
As the acid flies from her hands at the nurse, Amalthia growls aggressively. Suddenly her eyes widen again and she looks at her bare hands in confusion.
"What's happened to me?" she asks in a panic.
As the man's innards fall all over the floor and blood splatters around, drops land on Amalthia's face. She flinches, and wipes a drop of blood away, looking at it on her stained fingertips.
Why does this feel... right? What am I? What have I done?
Amalthia looks around, really taking in the crazed nurse, the prisoners across the way, and the man who shares her own cell.
...Whoever the man is... Whatever he might have done... I'll need his help.
Amalthia reaches out a hand and touches the naked man beside her on the shoulder.
"Trust me," she tells him.
A green, cold, slimy goo quickly flows from Amalthia's hand across Ragnar's body and then vanishes. Now invisible, the slick, chill ectoplasm would help protect him from harm.
Malugar scrambles down onto all fours, reaching for the blood-slicked key that rests on the floor near their cell. He fumbles with it, his large fingers now coated in red, inserting it into the lock on the door and attempting to turn it in either direction, pushing and pulling against the bars.
Meanwhile, his many rats continue to feast, their maws and coats smeared with blood.
"Quick, toss them the key. I'll try and keep this thing busy"
Shirrin pushes the cell door open, rushes to the gurney and snatches up what seems to him to be the most deadly instrument on the tray
That may or may not provoke. He'd prefer to NOT provoke, mind, but if he does he does.
Ragnar nods and reaches out through the bars with his hand ready to pull back if the nurse thing strikes out but hoping that Malugar will throw the keys as he was being urged. "Come on! We can stop her together! If he could get to the tray he could at least try and fight it.
Malugar throws the keys to the human male in the other cell. He has no idea if he can trust the man, but at least he isn't butchering a corpse on an operating table.
Amalthia realized, that while she had no idea what this thing was, it was not magical in nature.
The nurse, having vented her anger at the poor dead man, finally noticed the rats gnawing on her legs.
Turning her fury on the swam, she swung wildly at the rats all around her
She was so distracted attacking the rats, she didn't see Shirrin the sharpest looking knife on the table
gm rolls
After ensuring that the others are able to escape their cell, Malugar cautiously approaches Shirrin. Averting his eyes from the carnage, he speaks a word and brushes the man's shoulder, a spark of energy passing between their flesh.
The rats chew incessantly.
Ragnar will be trying to unlock the door and leave the cell when he can. Struggling with the keys, it seems the lock has seen betters years as he has to jiggle it while looking up at the fray outside unable to help yet.
In some of the games I am in the GM puts up the initiative like this and then resolves all the bits and does the bad guys turn before making the other characters bold. Otherwise people might wait til others have acted which because of the medium slows things down. Whatever works best for you, just something to consider.
Initiative order
1. Malugar
2. Shirrin
3. Nurse
4.Amalthia
5. Ragnar
Shirrin grabs up the dagger and tries to stab the nurse
"I don't know what foul beast you are but it is past time for you to DIE!!!!"
If that misses, he'll use inspiration for
The knife slides into the belly of the monstrous nurse. With a pitiful wail, the nurse tenses then collapses. Shirrin saw whatever vile force that drove the beast vanish from its eyes before it was consumed by the rolling mass of the rat swarm.
With a click, Ragnar managed to open his cell, finally freeing all four strangers.